Materialised Distance
Materialised Distance takes as its point of departure Maurice Harron’s iconic public monument Hands Across the Divide, erected in 1992 in the city variously known as Derry and Londonderry. The monument depicts two bronze figures reaching towards one another across the city’s political and sectarian divide, their hands almost meeting in a gesture of reconciliation.
'Hands Across the Divide' sculpture by Maurice Harron in Craigavon Bridge crossing the River Foyle, Derry~Londonderry, 2013.
Barakeh focuses not on the figures themselves, but on the precise volume of air suspended between their hands. Using high-precision 3D scanning, he captured this negative space, translated it into a digital model, 3D-printed it, and subsequently cast it in ceramic. The resulting sculpture gives physical form to an otherwise invisible distance: the space of a handshake that remains perpetually incomplete.
What appears empty becomes the central substance of the work—a gap charged with historical, emotional, and political tension. The figures remain close enough to connect, yet are permanently fixed in a moment of unfinished reconciliation.
